Month: July 2019

Alex promised he wouldn’t splash me this time… and he didn’t.

Katie got a couple of minutes in the hot tub, which she richly deserved.

Brekky with the kids, practicing, a little bit of writing. BP is terrible but my heart rate is down.

There’s a brigade of bots and people who, when you put something on the internet, weird or cute or sad or triumphant or a snapshot of rape culture, will say, It Never Happened. These are the people to whom I refer. Many are bots. Of the minority who are people, the majority are men. A minority of them are attested (blue check, as in that account is valid) ‘authority figures’, ‘journalists’ and ‘celebrities’ on twitter.

It’s gross.  My response:

The revenge of unintended consequences is coming for the It Never Happened crowd. These gammon-adjacent persons invite closer scrutiny of what’s on their resumés, and the truth will set them free of having any decent future prospects, while schadenfreude sounds in the air. <ting>

People may get strapped in to this ‘subvert the narrative’ drive because they probably need to divert attention from their own truths, almost all of which might possibly involve not being believed by an authority figure. Note how I allowed doubt to permeate every phrase of the foregoing sentence? A hagfish couldn’t make that thing slipperier.

Anyway, I think they might be powerless people with crappy sex lives and frowny faces. You might think I say this to be rude, but I have never met a person that had a good sex life and a cheerful countenance who spent a second calling a total stranger, who was amiably relaying an anecdote about her six year old, a fuckin’ liar and attention whore, sometimes in as many words, always couched in a cold piss-bath of hate speech, completely out of sync with whatever was posted.

If we were all adults — I mean I’m in my 15th instar and I still haven’t pupated, Christ… anyway — were we all adults we’d feel pity and offer support, but eventually some angry young coder is going to doxx the living shit out of one of the It Never Happened types. There will be public shame for lies, because anyone who spends their cognitive pennies on calling truth-tellers liars and gets caught spinning porkies on the ol’ resumé — especially to do with titles and academic claims— will be fried like the gammon rasher they are.

Sadly, the bots will remain.

The bots and humans that are doing this have a horrific, parasitic relationship that reminds me of the mechanical grip and stab of a wasp positioning and deploying her ovipositor. The bots pump up the volume of comments and embolden the humans. The humans are inspired and emboldened by what they feel is an entire army of angry humans at their side, and make original content, some of it quite witty, all of it fucking hateful, and the botfarms steal their content and cross post, sometimes millions of times. The identifash and trolls who are their prey make content and amplify messaging for the parasite.

For all this hate bubbling and burping and foaming and frothing in the lava lake known as social media, it takes live human identifash activists to shoot up mosques, and while a certain craggy faced oligarch rains money down on bot farms, it’s nose-led white kids from red states who get hamburgers on the way to a life sentence. It’s parasitism from across the sea. It’s absolutely terrifying, and yet, oh so natural. The host pays the price,

but sometimes the parasites run out of biomass and the whole shebang collapses. Given that one is being born on the internet every second, or so it seems, I think there is still a lot of biomass for the botfarms.

Note. Gammon-adjacent is an enlargement of gammon, one of the British terms for neofash. A gammon is a large ham, and a large ham is Pink, Large, Slightly Sweaty, held in disfavour by Muslims and vegans, Salty and did I mention Pink, also very histrionic in the thespian take of the word ham, so there’s a lot in there. It has nothing to do with the foregoing but I thought I’d mention that another thing these folks get called on twitter is w⚓️ (wanker). I haven’t heard anyone called a gammon w⚓️ yet but I’m sure it’s coming.

People who draw a paycheque as journalists and columnists and think piecers participate in this behaviour. Alex Jones, for example. If you don’t know who he is, don’t bother.

 

Mike called a couple of days ago and asked me to sit in his apartment for a while to let workmen in and I did, and now I’m going to walk home again.

I have errands to run on the way home, so that’s convenient.

BP down about ten points, systole and diastole both, but it really needs to be lower than that, and she started me on a super low dosage – I probably need to double it after the wear-in period. (Dosage is half the normal recommended, but given that it has a lot of potential side effects, I can see her point).

• blood pressure almost identical to before I started
• been taking meds religiously at the correct times in the correct dosage
• I have zero appetite
• I never have any energy, so I can’t really tell the difference (this is a joke, I have lots of energy on alternate Thursdays by appointment)
• I am allowed a period of adjustment

my blood pressure this morning was 118 over 78

 

Needless to say I am energetically happy this morning, I’ve been doing laundry and hanging up clothes and running the dishwasher and making oatmeal.

Took my first dose at 6. The next couple of days are expected to be a write off, and I need a medic alert bracelet if I stay on it (paramedics need to know you’re on it.)

Productive day, went to the bank, got myself a nice lunch, saw the doc & filled the prescription, found the only public washroom in the Brewery District PS NEW WESTMINSTER U SUCK, came home on transit even though I was desperate to take a cab and to my amusement found a cheque from the BC government for 100 bucks in my mail.

For overpayment of MSP (health insurance), which will be paid for starting in January.

Leedle beet writing, not much but a couple of hundred words.

Yesterday morning was so lovely.

It started with us jumping in the car to go down to Angelina’s for breakfast. They’ve moved into a much nicer space around the corner from where they were at the Quay, and their fruit cup was WORTH 13 bucks. (also get toast and cottage cheese). On the way down the hill, Jeff’s eyes travelled across the Old Spaghetti House sign and he said, in a conversational tone, “I wonder why they’d build a factory to make old spaghetti,” an observation which briefly left me speechless. It was too good to last, however, and after some meshuggas with the parking we arrived, and Paul and the kids arrived shortly thereafter.

We all pretty much cleaned our plates. Then the five of us walked along the Quay toward Annacis Island and it was so absolutely lovely that I felt myself shiver with happiness.

Later Katie came and I bought another set of trainers at Metrotown, also a bra and socks. She bought shoes too. Mine are only for when it’s not raining, though.

Jeff had gone to visit a friend on Bowen Island when I got back so I’ve been practicing and daydreaming and making biscotti and cleaning my room and snoozing with Buster and now I can’t sleep.

When I wake up this morning I’m going to run laundry and in the afternoon I’m going swimmin’ with Alex and his momma.

I’ve started working on a comedy routine again, starting off with all the ways I’m not like your mom.

I just got Finale running. I’m amazed.

so I experienced flamenco and tango last night and it was magnificent! started off the Latinx flavoured event with pork tacos off a food truck!

I wasn’t exactly stuck on the Michel and Sissy chapter, but I wasn’t wrong to lay the sitch on Mike and ask for his advice. What he came up with raised the stakes – right into a sci fi global caper plot, which I am now trying to figure out how I’d even structure. For the time being I’ll be okay with handwaving, but I need to talk to some IT professionals about the mechanics or it will as they say a real short trip.

Yesterday Mike drove me out to the south beach at Alouette Lake where Trent and Diane and a bunch of their friends and kung fu buddies had set up a campsite IN THE SHADE of the IMMENSE pines, cedars and firs. Since we had already made the 45 minute drive in a convertible with the top down – it was a day of unparalled glory.

Met a few more people, Mike set up the guitar and amp and I yes I accompanied his playing of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald because that’s how we go.

We have more foodicles, including green things! I’m going picnicking at Alouette Lake today with Mike and the usual gang of kung fu masters! The fanfic is over 7K words and I’ve been prepping the Michel and Sissy chapter mentally. I’m listening to Virginia Plain on Spotify (broke down and subscribed yesterday).  I’ve got a couple of hours to push stuff around and make food and then I’m off to get really sunburned and have a great day.